Chiang Mai, Thailand

Two wonderful tropical holiday islands, two intense turn-offs for tourism. That’s Phuket and Phi Phi today in the wake of mystery deaths on one island and a series of needless tourist drownings on the other.

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It’s time for a change, for the sake of Thailand’s tourism industry – and for the sake of saving lives.

But a lot more attention is also going to be paid to the SIX drownings of tourists at Phuket beaches in the space of just a month and a day.

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Thailand’s tourism officials eventually realised how damaging the deaths could be for Chiang Mai tourism and had them fully investigated, despite efforts by some locals in Chiang Mai to simply cover up the deaths in hope the tourists would came back.

Lt Siwa Saneha of Phi Phi Island Police Station told the Phuket Gazette, “We received a report at about 9pm yesterday, that two tourists’ bodies were found in the same hotel room at the Phi Phi Palms Residence.We rushed to the hotel with medical officers from Koh Phi Phi Hospital and a rescue team.”

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The sisters, one aged 20 and the other aged 26, checked in to the hotel on Tuesday.

.“They went out and came back to their room that same night, but stayed in their room all day on Wednesday,” he said.
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It was not until yesterday that hotel staff became concerned for the women’s welfare.

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The deaths of these two women follow an American and two Norwegian tourists dying of suspected poisoning after staying at ‘The Laleena guesthouse’ on Phi Phi Island in 2009.

The manager of the Downtown Inn Hotel in Chiang Mai yesterday denied the hotel has been using a bedbug killer containing chlorpyrifos.

His comments followed reports in the New Zealand media that an independent investigation had found traces of chlorpyrifos, a potentially lethal toxin used to kill bedbugs, in samples from hotel rooms where guests had developed fatal illnesses and some died either right in their hotel rooms or elsewhere.

Thanthep Bunkaeo said Downtown Inn Hotel, which is in Muang district, had stopped using the bedbug killer a long time ago.

He insisted there was no chlorpyrifos in any of the hotel rooms.

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Earlier, the findings from an independent investigation were reported on the New Zealand television programme 60 Minutes.

The investigators noted that SEVEN GUESTS who had stayed at the hotel and died later on MIGHT have died because of high levels of pesticide in their hotel rooms.

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Investigators found traces of chlorpyrifos on bed linen in one of the hotel rooms.

‘According to New Zealand-based United Nations scientist Dr. Ir. Ron McDowall, chlorpyrifos poisoning is the likely cause of death of New Zealand tourist Sarah Carter and several others in Thailand in 2011.’

A Canadian man from Edmonton has become the SEVENTH MYSTERY DEATH in a MONTH in a controversy which has rocked the northern Thai capital of Chiang Mai.

Canadian Bill Mah, 59, died after using the facilities of the Downtown Inn in Chiang Mai, where a British couple and a Thai tourist guide were found dead in their rooms, and also from where a 23-yr-old New Zealand woman was taken convulsing and vomiting before her death in hospital.

Today friends and relatives of Mr. Mah, who worked for Telplus Communications in Edmonton as a telephone installer and repairman, were seeking clarification of the cause of his death saying Mr. Mah had no history of any heart problem. The death was not made public at the time.

Ken Fraser, who was on golfing holiday with his friend from Alberta said: “His death is a complete mystery. He seemed fit enough with no history of heart problems. We have not been told his cause of death. We only have an initial report.

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“That report states ‘Suspected natural disease pending lab reports and toxicology’, but we have not been given the results of the tests and we have pressed the Canadian consul to try and get answers for us. I know Bill used the facilities at the Downtown Inn because he asked me to go there with him but I had other things to do. What natural disease are they saying he had?”

In early February, I spent three nights at Chiang Mai Ram Hospital with, what I think of as a SEVERE case of diarrhea and nausea. I thought the care was EXCELLENT; however, they were unable to diagnose the cause.

Police have ruled out foul play after four people staying at a Chiang Mai hotel died over a 16-day period.

Two foreign tourists and a Thai tour guide were all found dead in the DOWNTOWN INN Hotel in Chiang Mai’s Muang district last month. A third foreigner staying at the hotel later died in hospital.

Despite some coincidences and similarities in the deaths, police do not believe any of the victims were murdered.

The first death was that of Thai tour guide Waraporn Yingmahasaranont, 47, whose body was found in front of the bathroom inside her fifth-floor room on Feb 3. Police said she had suffered from diarrhoea before her death.

On Feb 18, New Zealand tourist Sarah Carter, 23, was killed by an apparent bout of food poisoning.

Hotel staff interviewed by police said Carter and two foreign friends, who had also checked in to a room on the fifth floor, had brought barbecued pork and chicken back to the hotel that night and later became violently ill.

The staff took them to a local hospital, where Carter died. The two friends recovered and have since left Thailand.

Pol Lt Col Sawat Lakas, deputy chief of Muang district police in Chiang Mai, said investigators were still waiting for results of the post-mortem examination on Carter and Waraporn.

The next night, an elderly British couple died in their fourth-floor room.

A post-mortem examination confirmed both George Everly, 78, and Elean Everly, 74, died as a result of an unusual enlargement of their heart muscles with blocked arteries, Pol Lt Col Sawat said.

However despite the coincidence, doctors found no trace of poison in their stomachs, nor did police find any evidence of a struggle in the room.

The deputy chief said all three of the guests who died at the hotel had locked their rooms from the inside.

Hotel manager Thanthep Boonkaew has been called for questioning by police.